I have a separate partition for /usr/local which survives a reinstall. All the stuff, that I build from source ends up in /usr/local and survives so i would like to do the same with those app's I install with APT.

I like the idea of klik. But I have tried to get five different apps but only two of them worked: wajig and abiword. Unfortunately, GIMP and Gnucash did not and they are important to me.

I have also switched to Kanotix in an effort get something that will be less transitory. Have you successflly tried a dist-upgrade? I have spent the last couple of days doing an apt-get -d upgrade and will give it a shot tomorrow.